Coyote Gulch

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Upcoming Events - Councilwoman Marcia Johnson
I usually post information from Councilwoman Johnson's e-mail list. She's upgraded things so that she now has an event page on DenverGov.
7:18:45 PM

2004 Presidential Election
The Denver Post editorial staff is tickled pink that Senator Kerry and President Bush are talking about the War in Iraq rather than the Vietnam War [September 21, 2004, "Candidates finally get the right war in focus"]. From the editorial, "It is six weeks before the Nov. 2 elections. We urge both Bush and Kerry to sharpen their focus on the issues that voters care about most: Iraq and the economy. Voters have heard enough about each candidate's military service."
Daily Kos: "President Bush and Sen. John Kerry agreed Monday to meet in three debates over a two-week period starting Sept. 30 that will include separate forums on foreign and domestic issues." Here is the schedule.
Taegan Goddard: "President Bush "has regained some of his post-convention lead" in the latest IBD/TIPP Poll which shows him ahead of Sen. John Kerry, 46% to 43%, among likely voters. Bush has a one point lead among registered voters. In the latest Zogby Battleground Poll, Bush "picks up more ground," but "there are signs of resilience in the Kerry campaign." In an electoral vote count based on these latest polls, Kerry would win, 297-241. This contrasts with the Electoral Vote Predictor which has no candidate at the necessary 270 votes: Kerry 239, Bush 256. However, please note that today's map does not yet include many of the state polls we reported yesterday. Here are the latest state polls: New Jersey - Kerry 49%, Bush 48% (Quinnipiac); Ohio - Bush 54%, Kerry 43% (Cincinatti)."
Electoral-vote.com: "Lots of polls today, as promised yesterday. Seventeen in all. Zogby has released polls in 16 battleground states and Survey USA has a very surprising one in Maryland, showing Bush and Kerry tied at 48% each. Up until now Maryland has been strongly Democratic. It remains to be seen if this result is confirmed by other pollsters. Of the 16 battleground states, Zogby has Kerry ahead in 11 and Bush ahead in 5. Since I round the numbers to integers, my result is 9 states for Kerry, 5 states for Bush, with Florida, and Arkansas tied, even though Kerry is fractionally ahead in both. The net effect is that Kerry has closed the gap in the electoral college from a Bush lead of 116 yesterday to only 17 today, a net gain of 99 votes in the electoral college. How did this happen? Kerry picked up Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for a net gain of 76 electoral votes, Bush lost 33 in Arkansas and Florida, and Kerry lost 10 in Maryland. The other states polled didn't switch candidates. But as usual, note that states with a white core on the map are essentially tossups, no matter what color the border is. What is becoming apparently over time is that Zogby polls tend to favor Kerry, Gallup and Strategic Vision vision polls tend to favor Bush, and the rest are somewhere in between. It is more likely that different methodologies are at work here than that somebody has his thumb on the scale. Gallup normalizes the number of Republicans in the sample to 40%. Zogby doesn't normalize for party preference at all. All of them correct for gender, age, race, and some other factors. Also, the pollsters differ in how they determine likely voters. The conclusion is seems to matter which pollster you use. I will continue to use them all unless they are caught red-handed with their hands in the cookie jar."
11:08:45 AM

Denver November 2004 Election
Prominent hispanics were in Colorado yesterday trying to get voter turnout numbers up amongst hispanic voters, according to the Denver Post [September 21, 2004, "Latinos on a drive for Dems"]. From the article, "Dolores Huerta, co-founder of United Farmworkers of America, used the tour to rail against the war in Iraq, which she said is being fought largely by Hispanic soldiers..In addition to Huerta, participants included California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante; Mickey Ibarra, a former aide to President Clinton; Texas Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; and actress Eva Longoria. U.S. census figures show there are nearly 40 million Latinos in the country, making them the largest minority group. As former Denver Mayor Federico Peña tells it, only 45 percent of the 350,000 Hispanics eligible to vote in Colorado are registered. Of those, he added, only 44 percent voted in 2000." Here's the coverage from the Rocky Mountain News [September 21, 2004, "Hispanics slam Bush"].
Here's an article, from the Denver Post, about Ballot Issue 4B which would continue the sales tax for the Scientific and Cultural District [September 21, 2004, "Cultural groups bank on SCFD tax"]. From the article, "The district collects a penny on every $10 spent in a seven-county metro tax district and redistributes the $35 million in annual revenue to more than 300 organizations. Right now, the "Big Four" cultural institutions in Denver receive at least one-fourth of their operating budget from the tax - the Denver Zoo, the Denver Art Museum, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science and the Denver Botanic Gardens. If approved, the boundaries of the taxing district will expand to include another third of Douglas County, bringing up to $3 million a year more into SCFD coffers with the addition of Lone Tree and Park Meadows mall. Voters established the district in 1988 and reauthorized it in 1994. The sales tax brings in an average of $15 a year from every resident in the district, which includes all of Denver, Broomfield, Jefferson and Boulder counties and parts of Adams and Douglas counties. Voters in November will decide whether to add all of Adams to the district while giving Castle Rock and Larkspur the option to join the district with local voters' approval. The tax is set to expire in 2006 unless voters extend it another 12 years, a scenario that smaller organizations don't want to imagine."
Amendment 37 would be a big winner if the election were held today, according to the Rocky Mountain News [September 21, 2004, "State voters want renewable energy"]. From the article, "A resounding majority of Coloradans want some of their electricity to come from renewable sources such as the sun, wind and plant and animal waste, according to a Rocky Mountain News/News 4 poll. Of the 500 registered voters who were polled, 74 percent said they approve of Amendment 37, while 19 percent said they disapprove and the remaining 7 percent said they didn't know." The Rocky has a companion article with a lot of detail [September 21, 2004, "Electricity is in air as voters take charge of Amendment 37"].
Amendment 35 is the subject of this article from the Rocky Mountain News [September 21, 2004, "Coloradans fired up for tobacco initiative"]. From the article, "In the survey, 65 percent of respondents said they planned to vote "yes" on the tax, 33 percent said "no." Two percent were undecided or didn't answer. The poll was conducted for the Rocky Mountain News and News 4 by Public Opinion Strategies, which interviewed 500 registered voters. Conducted Sept. 12 and 13, the poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.33 percentage points."
10:36:42 AM

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